Friday, December 10, 2010

When creating signs for their patrons, librarians should be mindful to avoid library jargon. You can also make a more deliberate attempt to speak your patrons' language by intentionally inserting grammatical mistakes, spelling errors, and unnecessary punctuation on your BROKE printers, out of order ELEVATOR'S, and KEEP AT "REF DESK" scissors.

Ask the readers: What poorly written signs are hanging in your library?

I have worked in two libraries where the directors don't believe in signage. What is up with this hatred of signage in libraries? Even if the patrons don't read the signs, they still help staff members maneuver and direct patrons.

Worked at a university library where the director had latched on to an idea that in a library "The space should explain itself". Of course the director took a personal interest in every single sign.

This was confusing as all hell in a building designed and built for a university of 5,000 students that had 19,000 by my time, several extensions tacked on, and extensive internal repartitioning of the space.

Current place of work: as a systems guy the thing I hate is scrappy, hand written out-of-order notices. No excuse when there's a nice looking Word template available that's less effort to print than making a scrappy sign by hand.

In lieu of a printed sign, some bad verbal direction: when one of our former librarians gave elementary school kids a tour of the library, she misidentified the unisex bathroom as the bisexual bathroom.

We have multiple signs that read "limit 10 Cd's per card." The worst part is, a senior librarian put them up without noticing the error. It makes me die a little on the inside every time I see one. Someday I will tear them all down, and damn them if they ask me to make more to correct the error!

I once worked with a sign-addicted coworker. Signs for everything. Quotes. Unattended children warnings. Upcoming events. DO NOT RESHELVE BOOKS!!!!! We had opposite shifts. About once a week a sign would “accidently” fall off and rip, and I would toss it into the recycling bin. I got rid of a lot of signs that way.

Back in the day when we paid per search plus time online for OCLC records, my boss would go through the panicky ritual: close the door tight just before going online. On the door the sign read in magic marker, "Do Not Distrub"

"Please do not use this door. Please use the door next to this door. Or you can use the door on the first floor, but not the door on the right. Only the one on the left. Thank you." At least it is polite ;)

As for the CD's/CDs debate, both spellings have merit. Plural abbreviations have traditionally used apostrophes. So it would be CD's but not Compact Disc's. Don't assume people are ignorant of the possessive apostrophe rule. Don't even get me started on it's/its!